


a list of truths

by ofshadowsandstars



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt No Comfort, Jim Has Issues, Jim needs a hug, M/M, Pining, Tarsus IV, brief mentions, if i feel like it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 04:03:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8782186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofshadowsandstars/pseuds/ofshadowsandstars
Summary: James Tiberius Kirk's life was a series of painful truth.





	

Jim Kirk’s life was a series of painful truths.

  1. His birthday was the anniversary of his father’s death, so his mother would never have a smile that reached her eyes on that day. Not even for her only child’s birthday, not even for the joy of him. But because she didn’t have enough happy in her, neither did Jim.
  2. He was smart, and people hated him for it. Things came easily to him, so he was the golden child while the other kids glared at him and moved away when he sat down at a table, even at the age of eight. So he started misbehaving. Being the golden child got him hated.
  3. His bad behavior got him sent to Tarsus IV. On Tarsus IV, he nearly starved to death and witnessed a leader massacre his own citizens. When the ship came to bring him and the two other boys home, he could count his ribs in the dark, he was so thin. Back on Iowa, he ate like it was his last meal. He threw it back up every time for weeks, but he kept doing it anyway. He could handle the shouting from his uncle, the anger from his mother. He had food again.
  4. His father was a hero, and he was dead. Jim was no hero, just a too smart pretty boy with a grudge against authority and a legacy weighing on his skull. He said ‘fuck you’ to that legacy as often as he could - mostly by doing things that would likely get him killed. He was just a little bit disappointed every time it didn’t.
  5. He couldn’t resist a dare, no matter how much he knew he should. He could have taken a nap listening to Christopher Pike in that bar; he’d heard people sing praises of his father enough times in the past. Right up until those six magic words: “I dare you to do better.” That was the moment that Jim’s stomach sank. He was drunk and bleeding and humiliated and, like the dumbass he was, had just been dared into joining Starfleet. Which he was going to do, because an authoritative man in a crisp uniform had dared him. God, Jim hated his life.
  6. As much as he wished he could do things like a normal person, being normal was the most terrifying concept to him. He had to graduate in three years because four was standard. He had to reprogram the test because he refused to be another person who failed. He had to run around the Fleet’s newest ship like a madman because he’d snuck on and knew of the impending doom that no one else could have dreamed of (the singular perk of that never ending cycle of the George Kirk story). On his way to a Starfleet station, he got chased by two giant, malicious, hungry alien creatures. Just because the universe had decided that walking in a snowstorm on a foreign planet wasn’t enough shit for him.
  7. He had heard his mother speak of her late husband enough times to hear the edge in Ambassador Spock’s voice when he referred to James T. Kirk as his ‘friend’. So when Jim had said, “that can’t be right; you hate me,” he had meant to say _don’t put me in charge of breaking your heart_.
  8. By the time Nero was destroyed, Jim found himself wanting to be Spock’s friend.
  9. Within two months, Jim found himself not wanting to go anywhere without Spock. Bones was no fun; at least Spock wouldn’t complain.
  10. He was way too invested in what happened between Spock and Uhura. He asked too many questions. He called himself selfish every time he looked at either of them. If Bones caught on, he said nothing.
  11. He would have beamed down into that volcano by himself to save his first officer if someone had said it was necessary. Starfleet and regulation and risk of death be damned. _I won’t fly without him_.
  12. Jim had wanted to scream when he heard Spock was going to be transferred to another starship. Scream and kick and destroy like he had as a child in Iowa, trying to prove he wasn’t good, that he wouldn't behave.
  13. “I’m going to miss you,” did not mean what a listener would think it meant. It meant _going forward, I am going to be in agony. There will be a thousand things wrong and the biggest thing will be a hole shaped like you. Tell me you don’t want this either._
  14. He was met with a blank stare. Jim scoffed to swallow a choke and hurried away. There was nothing to be done now.
  15. Jim never knew his father, and he hated him for that. He rejected father figures of all kinds, and it wasn’t until he was sobbing and clutching onto Christopher Pike’s Starfleet uniform that he understood his mother’s pain. The world was dark and empty and everything good had been torn away.
  16. On multiple occasions, he had heard people he cared about saying that they wouldn’t mind dying. His mother, kids on Tarsus IV, a guy he dated for a summer back in Iowa. And now Spock. But this time, Jim’s mind murmured _die all you want, so long as you take me with you._ But that was not the time for dying. There was still a job to be done. It was never the right time to die.
  17. Jim knew every member of his crew. Every name, every rank, every species. He knew who was stationed where and what shifts they had. When his ship was blasted and torn apart, he automatically made a list of the people who had been on the places affected.
  18. He died to save the people he loved.
  19. He died looking into the eyes of someone supposed to have no emotion and saw tears and pain rawer than any wound he had ever seen.
  20. In his last few delirious seconds, Jim forgot about the laws of physics, and he tried to will his hand to go through the glass and touch Spock’s. Really touch it. He knew Vulcan customs. He knew what it meant. He didn’t care.



And then the world went dark.


End file.
